Lost in Austin: 24 hours in Austin

7am You're in Austin. Well
done you! You start your day like a local with a pre-breakfast jog
at Lady Bird Lake followed by a cooling dip at Barton Springs. You will notice that the
average Austinite is fitter than a butcher's dog.

8am You prepare for the day
with a hearty 'cattle baron' omelette at The Driskill
Hotel's 1886 Café & Bakery. It's got ham, bacon,
chorizo and turkey in it. And sausage. And cheddar. Welcome to
breakfast, Texan-style.

9am Time to swot up on the
area with a quick circuit of the Bullock Texas State History Museum. Sounds
boring but turns out to be alight with neon signs and has an IMAX
theatre.

10am You hire a bike from an
Austin
B-cycle station (like the Boris bike, but Texan), and then
pootle around Downtown, trying not to be disappointed when you drop
by Mellow
Johnny's, Lance Armstrong's bike shop, and realise he's not
there, down on his knees changing a tyre.

11am You pedal over to SoCo
(South Congress Avenue) to kit yourself out for tonight's two-step
dance class (see 6pm), with cowboy boots and a Stetson from Allens
Boots. The shop's been there since 1977.

Noon Next up is lunch at Jo's, one of
SoCo's many fabulous food carts. You'll notice that the average
Austinite is very concerned with eating locally, healthily and
organically, but you should've known that already - Whole Foods HQ
is based in Austin.

1pm You decide to make some
rich friends over at West Lake Hills in West Austin. Each house you
pass is bigger than the one before, and you hope that if you hang
around long enough you're bound to be invited on board a yacht to
cruise the Colorado river. After half an hour of picking at your
nails on a park bench, you start to feel a bit awkward, so you
decide to have a nosey at the houses from the vantage point at
Mount Bonnell instead.

2pm Now it's on to the
sprawling, historic University of Texas. It houses seven museums,
but you hone in on the Lyndon B Johnson Library. It has an exact
replica of the Oval, office where you take a
pretending-you're-at-the-White-House selfie. Barack Obama was there
two weeks ago for the Civil Rights summit. He didn't take a
selfie.

3pm You can't tear yourself
away from the library, particularly the gift shop, where you buy a
'Texas' rubber duck and an 'All The Way With LBJ' pin. As you're
leaving, you spot a Lyndon B Johnson life-size animatronic telling
jokes in his actual voice. Bit creepy.

5pm Next stop is Austin City Limits
Live at the Moody Theatre: it's Top of the Pops,
only cooler (and minus Jimmy Savile). The ACL celebrates its 40th
anniversary this year. After your tour, you take a photo of
yourself by the Willie Nelson statue outside. Screams of tourist,
but you don't care.

6pm YEE-HAH! It's time for
your two-step dance class at the
Broken Spoke, which claims to have the best honky-tonk music in
Texas.

7pm You're thirsty after all
that dancing. You have a pre-dinner Lone Star beer while listening
to a band playing the banjo at the divey White
Horse bar. Thanks to your cowboy boots and Stetson, you really
fit in and don't look like a tourist at all...

8pm You arrive at the Ann W
Richards Congress Avenue Bridge for some bat watching. At dusk
during summer, nearly 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats living
under the bridge go out to feed. It's quite the spectacle.

9pm EVERYONE wants to eat at
Franklin
Barbecue, but you don't have time to queue for three hours and
order a hot dog at Banger's Sausage House instead. It also stocks
101 types of draft beer and is positioned at the top of Rainey
Street, which you soon learn, is very convenient.

10pm You start your Rainey
Street bar crawl. All around you is live music, gorgeous people and
strong drinks. You are in heaven.

11pm You are nearly
cross-eyed but still head to East 6th Street for more music and
drinking, this time with the city's hipsters.

Midnight You find yourself
in a rooftop bar on 6th Street, playing giant Jenga with the
locals. You notice that the average Austinite seems the nicest
person you have ever met, although quite frankly by now everyone is
the nicest person you've ever met.

1am It's definitely time to
ride a mechanical bull, so you head to The Trophy Club. Within
seven seconds you have landed, legs akimbo, on the floor, but you
still high-five everyone in the bar when you get up.

2am Lights out. No, you
haven't passed out - it's lights out for the whole city. Music off,
bars closed, off you go. You spot a horse and carriage and blag a
ride back to your hotel for $15.

3am You go to sleep. Your
eyes shut as soon as your head hits the pillow of your four-poster
king size bed.

6.45am Time for breakfast.
You order room service to eat out on your balcony while watching
everyone else start their day. Oh look, there's even a
'hangover' omelette on the menu. What a city.

British Airways, which has just launched a new
route from London Heathrow to Austin, offers three nights at The
Driskill Hotel from £749 per person, room only, including return
flights. For reservations visit ba.com or call 0844 493 0758